Pippa Bailey

Deputy editor @newstatesman

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

This week’s cover story is another cracking long read by @emilylawford on the young men dragging British politics to the right 🍰🍰

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

NIGEL FARAGE'S BASTARDS by @emilylawford

Two years ago, Connor Tomlinson, Charlie Downes and Harrison Pitt met Rupert Lowe at a private seminar organised by the late Peter Whittle, who ran the New Culture Forum, a right-wing think tank. Lowe gave a speech, arguing that they should still back Reform. He then sat for an hour with the young men, listening to their criticism of Farage. This was a multi-millionaire, Thatcherite, public-schooled farmer, giving an audience to young men with whom he had very little in common and about whose lives he knew nothing. “But he listened,” Tomlinson remembered, “and he just said, ‘Right, you know what lads, I’ll take all those criticisms on board. I think they’ll strengthen the party. You’re the exact kind of guys we want to get involved.’”

Tomlinson thought Lowe was a man of principle, compared to other figures in Reform whom he saw as power-mad and dishonest. He found Reform’s increasingly campy vibe distasteful when the country was collapsing. “I went to a lot of caravan holidays as a kid, right? I know that there’s a place for it in British culture. But I don’t think when we’re staring down the gun barrel of complete national disaster, the Butlins and fireworks and Andrea Jenkyns singing in sequins is the way to go.”

When Lowe was kicked out of Reform a few months later, Tomlinson was ready to follow him anywhere. “What Rupert Lowe realises,” Tomlinson said, “is there is a next generation of people who are essentially autodidacts, who haven’t been through the Eton, Oxbridge, Spad, MP, Lords pipeline that’s generated nothing but cowards and traitors.”

Carl Benjamin told me he was certain that Restore would triumph eventually. “I’ve never been more convinced that essentially our victory is inevitable, as the horrors of multiculturalism become clear.” Yet as Restore kept eating into Reform’s vote share, people began to call for the right to unite. In early August, after Restore came fourth with 9 per cent in the Greater Manchester mayoral election, Lowe suggested his party and Reform “put our differences aside and cooperate for the good of the country”. He demanded a few things in return: mass deportation of illegal migrants “including women and children”, a referendum on the death penalty, and “the exclusion of former Tory ministers from any future cabinet”. Farage prevaricated, saying he was open to talks, but it quickly descended into a spat. Reform demanded Lowe get rid of Downes, citing concerns about “antisemitic and extreme racists at or near the top of the party”. Lowe refused to sack “a young Christian man”, and the deal fell apart.

Tomlinson blamed the deal collapsing on Reform. “Interpersonally, I like Farage,” he said, “but also I’m just pissed off when he goes around calling my friends fascists.” He wasn’t surprised Lowe backed Downes: “Rupert stands by his men.” Yet there is another reason Lowe did not agree to the demands. Had he accepted, many of his supporters would have followed Downes and other young influencers to whatever new venture they decided to back.

Lowe is not all that different from Farage. Both are wealthy, public-school boomers (69 and 62, respectively) and Tory supporters who are instinctively pro-Thatcher, pro-markets and anti-immigration. Yet the young men who once clung to Farage are from a different world: radicalised by the internet, the job market, the diversifying and declining high street. They are fiscally apathetic and culturally extreme. Think of them as the new, new right.

Over the past six months, I’ve spoken to dozens of these men. (Although there are a few high-profile female provocateurs, this world is overwhelmingly male.) They dress formally and call each other “patriot” the same way a leftist might say “comrade”. Their references span the Old Testament, Marcus Aurelius and the video game Skyrim. They have a trollish streak, but many are Christian and morally serious; they advocate marriage and fret about degeneracy. And they are transforming politics in this country.

Cover art by Nate Kitch

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

So very excited to have Mehreen joining the @NewStatesman team. She’s a phenomenal talent, energy and brain!

[Mehreen Khan @MehreenKhn]

🔔 Personal news news: I'm stoked to be joining the @NewStatesman as executive editor, working with @TomMcTague @tanjil_rashid_ @piptbailey and the team. I'll be writing, talking and podcasting about the state of the world and maybe some ⚽️. Get a sub: https://t.co/CTE02tAMpr

[Tanjil Rashid @tanjil_rashid_]

I know you've all been excited by this year's London Literature Festival curated by @DUALIPA at the @southbankcentre... don't miss the highlight, our @NewStatesman Goldsmiths Prize Lecture by Xiaolu Guo. I'll be in conversation with her after.

Sunday, 7.45pm
DM for free tickets

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@patrickkmaguire @daisyeastlake @Gabriel_Pogrund @larisamlbrown Very well deserved Patrick, congratulations!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

This week’s @NewStatesman cover - @freddiejh8 on how Trump’s America views Burnham’s Britain. Plus, inside life on death row, @EthanCroft98 reports from Tory conference, and @finn_mcredmond eats like a prepper

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

THE SUSPICIOUS RELATIONSHIP by @freddiejh8

Ask what people in Washington DC think about Burnham and it soon becomes clear that he does not make them think at all. A scoff, a shrug, a quizzical raise of the eyebrow, a look of bored pity: these are the common responses when the Prime Minister is mentioned. “He’s new, and the last one was new, and the one before that was new, and the one before that was new,” a White House official told me. “The thinking is: all right, well, on the current trend, he’ll probably be gone next year, too.”

The high turnover of UK leaders has only added to the idea that Britain has little to contribute – it simply does not have the cash, warships or AI firms to matter much to those in Washington looking at their global chessboard. “Burnham has the weight of the governor of South Dakota,” is how a Maga official put it to me.

Underneath all this is an emotional critique – that successive British governments have been poor custodians of America’s ancestral homeland. The concern is genuine among Maga figures and the tone is proprietorial, as if it were their responsibility to correct what the British elite has got so wrong. The millions of immigrants who have entered Britain over the past decade make the American right shake its head in disappointment. “You go to the UK, and it is not the UK of ten years ago or 20 years ago,” one official lamented.

Earlier this year, a senior administration official was listening to a British counterpart complain about the rise of the radical right in the UK. The Brit blamed disinformation. The American suggested that they take the public on tours of Birmingham and Blackburn to show that the disinformation was wrong and, in fact, those places were ethnically the same as they were in the 1950s. Some in the administration think there is little chance that Britain can recover under Burnham. “You’re an ally. Sort your stuff out, and we’ll get back to you when you have done that,” one White House official said.

Many in the US government hope that Nigel Farage takes Downing Street at the next election. He is seen within Maga as Britain’s best, and probably last, chance. While some on the online right think that Rupert Lowe’s ethno-nationalism is closer to what is needed – Lowe was recently on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast and his posts on X are pushed by Elon Musk – this is not yet a widespread view in the administration. “I see him as a slop purveyor,” one official said. Maga figures are still concerned that Reform lacks a professional operation but, by comparison, they think that Lowe’s Restore is little more than a social media party.

One figure remarked to me that Farage is increasingly thought of as a man standing in a DC bar waiting for someone to recognise him. But he is still seen as being on the same side as Maga. The US government is increasingly protective of right-wingers in Europe who they think are being persecuted by the liberal establishment. It was noted in Washington that when announcing a new centre to counter Russian disinformation in his UN speech, Burnham said he wanted to counter “far-right narratives”. Those narratives are often identical to the administration’s own policy.

Cover art by Cracked Hat

[Tom McTague @TomMcTague]

EXC: I spoke to Andy Burnham at length for this week's Labour Party conference special of the @NewStatesman. He opens up about the death of his father, how he is finding being Prime Minister and the sense of power he feels in the job. “There were too many people who wanted to have the job to have the job, whereas I wanted it because of what I can do with it and I am seized with that more than ever right now.” https://t.co/eEmfwccvtp

[Hannah Barnes @hannahsbee]

Have been taking a little break, but completely over the moon - and surprised - to win the Outstanding Contribution to health journalism at last night’s @mjauk #MJAawards along with Feature (general) of the year for my work on England’s failing maternity system for @NewStatesman - and in particular for investigating Oxford University Hospital with Channel 4 News. Enormous thanks to all of the mothers and fathers who trusted in me to share their story

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@TomMcTague speaks to the PM about everything that has changed - and everything that hasn’t - in the year since Burnham first set out his plan for power, in the @NewStatesman this time last year

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

A SENSE OF POWER by @TomMcTague

“It is hard to describe, coming into this job when I did and when things were happening,” Andy Burnham explains, “so it’s obviously been hard.” And yet, he believes his father’s death has reaffirmed his priorities. “I’ve also been finding a sense of power in it,” he tells me. “I can hear him and I know his quiet insistence on the things I should do. I’ll be drawing on that when I speak in Liverpool.” The voice Burnham hears is the voice of a traditional Labour man, old-school in some senses, progressive in others, but always resolute and clear-eyed about his beliefs.

Burnham tells me the quiet voice he can hear from his father is both moral and political. He was a lifelong advocate of proportional representation, an important part of his son’s conversion. He also “didn’t put a foot wrong” personally, Burnham says. “He treated people just wonderfully – he barely ever fell out with anybody,” as he puts it. “You asked what I took from him. I’ve tried to treat people like that myself, always.”

If there was a “quiet insistence” in the father, it is fair to say there is something similar in the son: an insistence about the things he wants to do and his own ability to do them. “If you can say, ‘I know why I’m doing it and I can see the difference that I’m making,’ then it all comes together and you can rationalise it,” Burnham explains, contemplating the challenge of power ahead of him.

So why is he doing it? “It is back to… rewiring the country,” he says. “Life for people in large parts of the country just isn’t good enough, and they don’t have enough power to change things.”

I push him on why he thinks only he can fix it and not someone else. “Oh, I don’t want to be arrogant,” he says, again, almost apologetically, hiding the steel of his conviction. He has been beating this drum for years, he says. He saw the injustice of the Hillsborough disaster and then in government was given the chance to change things. He tried to speak for the north in Westminster for 16 years but found he was “shouting into the wind” until he moved back home.

It sounds as though he believes there was a destiny to his journey. “I’m a believer that you get better at things through life if you do learn from things that happen, because they happen for a reason,” he replies, carefully. “So, you know, I do think things happen for a reason: the question is, what do you then do with that situation and how do you process it?” Does he believe in fate, then? “Fate is a bit of a mystical thing to believe in, and all that, so I’m not sure I quite believe in that, but I am a believer in that, you know, you learn and you change.” His mind is drawn to the weeks ahead: speaking to the Labour Party Conference for the first time as leader – back home, in the area he was born and shaped, where his family still live and where his father died. “The one thing I would want to sort of say is… how Liverpool will be a big thing, going to Liverpool for conference. When you talk about fate and all of that, that does feel a bit, you know, major in my life.”

Burnham believes his speech to the conference is the moment he will define the purpose of his premiership in ways that will leave no one in doubt of his intent. “It’s a moment to weave all of these threads together and to lay out the path, I think, and say, ‘Look, Britain’s here, we can be there’ – a much better place – ‘but we’re going to have to be honest with ourselves about what it takes to get from where we are right now to where we should be.’” Being honest with the country: this is the bar the Prime Minister has set for himself. “This has to be a point where the country says, ‘Right, we can’t carry on like this, we need to set a new, clear direction, a new clear path.’”

Cover art by Craig Fleming

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

This week’s cover story, by the inimitable @willydunn. Sure, it’s 95% doom, but there’s a fraction of hope in there too

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

WILL AI KILL US ALL? by @willydunn

What can we say we actually know in this fast-moving and contentious story? Having spoken to more than 20 AI experts, government officials and advisers, politicians and researchers, I suggest we know the following: a lot of highly intelligent people believe that there is an unacceptably high chance that AI might kill us all. We can only guess at how that would happen, or what the probability of it happening is. But we also know that whatever these people say about the danger of what they are building, they will not stop building it. They can’t. They are locked into the most expensive competition in history.

Spending on AI infrastructure this year alone is expected to exceed $1trn; this is more than three times what it cost America (in today’s money) to develop a nuclear weapon and put a person on the Moon. AI spending is now the main driver of US economic growth. About 80 per cent of all gains in US stock markets last year were from AI companies and related enterprises. No one will deliberately puncture this bubble, and even if they did, the geopolitical importance of AI means the US government – which has always aggressively advanced the interests of domestic companies – would probably not let them.

This is not only a race between tech companies, but between superpowers. The only option for a company such as Anthropic is to run through capitalism at breakneck speed, raising and spending titanic sums, to build a world-changing technology and, hopefully, prevent it from wiping us off the face of the Earth. There has never been so much money in the apocalypse business.

Cover art by Sam Green.

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@hannahsbee @NewStatesman Thanks Hannah!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

Returning to “X” after a few years’ break with the news that I am now Deputy Editor of the @newstatesman. I joined this magazine nearly eight years ago and have worked my way through six job titles in that time; I think I’ll stick with this one for a while now. My thanks to @tommctague for the honour!

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

GENERATION SCREWED by @Victoria_Spratt

If the 1980s and 1990s spawned Yuppies – young, “upwardly mobile” professionals with university degrees, well-paid jobs and disposable incomes – the 2010s and 2020s belong to the “Dumpys”: the Downwardly and Unhappily Mobile Professional Young. The Dumpys have some of the trappings of a middle-class existence – a degree, a professional job – but lack its foundations: a secure home of their own, financial freedom.

For the first time since industrialisation, huge numbers of young adults are no better off than their parents were at the same age. The comfortable, educated, professional middle class is collapsing, and with it the aspirations of many who wish to join it. Class war is not over, but the battle lines are being redrawn. Far from being a Blairite meritocracy, Britain is now an inheritocracy: a place where a young person’s life chances are defined not by their hard work, but by their access to family wealth.

Today, there is no single, widely agreed definition of what it means to be “middle class” or “working class”. Where once it may have been as simple as those who owned property, it is now more complicated – not least because Right to Buy meant council tenants could enter the property-owning classes. A person’s profession is no longer a clear guide to their class either, because thousands of people with apparently middle-class jobs and the historically middle-class credential of a degree rent and live from one payday to the next.

Intergenerational inequity is a problem for most Western economies, but it is particularly acute in Britain due to expensive housing, stagnant graduate wages, a fraying social safety net and extortionate childcare costs. Young adults everywhere are angrier than older people, and Britain is no exception. This, perhaps, is due to the gap between aspiration and reality: the chasm between what they were told life could be and what it is.

Cover art by Kris Andrew Small

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@AndrewMarr9 Thanks Andrew!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@Scarlett__Mag @TomMcTague @NewStatesman Thanks Scarlett!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@annettedittert @annemcelvoy @NewStatesman Thanks Annette!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@annemcelvoy @NewStatesman I like to keep Tom on his toes 😂

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@TanyaGold1 @NewStatesman Thanks Tanya!

[Pippa Bailey @piptbailey]

@MakushaMichaela @NewStatesman Thanks!